


Prison Walls, Crumbling

by Squornshellous_Beta



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: 1x18 Aftermath, Gen, Lots of words, One-Shot, Suicidal Thoughts, no actual action
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-25
Updated: 2015-03-25
Packaged: 2018-03-19 14:26:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3613359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squornshellous_Beta/pseuds/Squornshellous_Beta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of 1x18 (Dead Men Tell Long Tales), Henry reevaluates everything he thought he knew about his curse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prison Walls, Crumbling

> _“I believe that the only thing that can kill us is the weapon that made us this way.”_
> 
> _“Be a sport. Let me know if you work up the nerve.”_

_“It’s always ticking; I wind it every day. You okay, Henry?”_

_No,_ thought Henry Morgan, staring down at the gun in his lap. _I cannot say that I am._

For two centuries, he had believed that his very first death had meant that he had failed in his self-imposed repentance, his attempt to undo the sins of the fathers by the hand of the son; that in that failure he had been cursed, thrown back before he could move on from the world. And he had accepted it, come to view it as fitting; complicit as he was in the suffering of so many, why should he be allowed peace? It was – _just –_ in an odd way, he had felt, and so he had borne the hardships of love and loss, of life and death, of pain physical and mental alike, and of the times between; and even as he had withdrawn from the world, retreated into relative isolation, he had taken a form of comfort in the idea that he was facing only what he had earned.

Certainly he had tried to find some end to his curse; few prisoners are ever content to sit peacefully in their cell without even idle thoughts of escape, and Henry’s character would not allow him to be one of that small number. But he had never truly believed, in his heart, that he would actually find a way to truly die, and so the cell remained, solid stone walls unweathered by time. _Though,_ he had mused on occasion, when he felt particularly ironic, _walls of true stone will crumble before I do._

And then Jo came into his life, in the aftermath of yet another death, yet another reminder of Abigail, yet another heartache both metaphorical and literal; Jo with her pain and loss, hiding from her grief beneath work and alcohol, and in that shared pain they had bonded; in time, and with support, she would begin to recover, revealing a bright, cheerful woman with a sharp mind and a sharp wit, passionate about her causes and at once amused and fascinated by the few hints he could safely reveal to her. And to his amazement Henry found his own pain beginning to ease in turn, just a little, and had felt he didn’t deserve it, especially when she began slowly dragging him back into society at large; but he had been unable to avoid coming to care for her and Detective Hansen and Lieutenant Reese and – yes – even Lucas; and he had justified it to that dark corner of himself by consoling it with the knowledge that, eventually, those feelings too would become part of his punishment when they, in their own time, were lost to him as well.

But now, now all those thoughts and justifications were just so much wasted time. Ejiro – for all his good intentions he hadn’t even known the man’s _name_ , and he could justify it as having too little time for pleasantries and it would be true, but it was also true that he simply _hadn’t thought to ask,_ some part of him forgetting that the men he was freeing were anything more than props in his attempt at washing the blood from his family’s hands – had managed to get the key where fortune or fate deigned drop it from his lifeless hand, and the men had been able to live their lives in freedom. But if that were so, then what was he being punished for? If it wasn’t a punishment, just what _was_ the mysterious force behind his eternal revival?

And if he wasn’t being punished… how was he to deal with the (escape? Retreat? Coward’s way out? Suicide weapon? Or just another gun to fire just another bullet?) that Adam, wretched _Adam,_ had given him? The cell walls were crumbling, all he had held for certain was becoming unsure, and now who could even say what was on the other side, what would await him – for _no-one returneth thence,_ so it was codified from the earliest days of human awareness – no-one but _him,_ anyway…

_And of course,_ his thoughts continued inexorably, _if this weapon truly does (release me, end me, undo me, free me) then what would become of Abraham, and Jo, and Lucas, and all the others?_ Abraham would grieve, the one absolute certainty undone, and in his age it could prove his own undoing in turn; Lucas, so cheerful and energetic, would become despondent and drawn, and who could say if his love of knowledge might not wither and die, thoughts of where it had taken Henry souring it; and Jo, so freshly recovering from her grief, would be torn anew, and nobody could know until the happening whether she would cope better or worse for having recovered before.

But in turn, the choice to go on living was not itself free of hardship; Adam had shown him that, had combined the potential way out with the realization that he was losing himself to the slow, relentless grind of time. Which raised the question, in turn, of whether by doing this he would be serving Adam’s twisted ends somehow – well, in the best case he was serving as a balm to his curiosity, but in the worse cases he might be weakening himself somehow – that Highlander movie Lucas had mentioned and that Henry had looked up in a moment of boredom sprang ridiculously to mind – or it could be that the man would derive some twisted amusement from the suffering he would have caused… _Though,_ he considered, _if I am beginning to lose myself, would it not be better to head that off before I come to be like Adam and turn my knowledge of my loved ones against them? And even if that process took longer than they could yet live – and if I somehow avoid coming to know_ anyone _new in that time – there would still be_ two _ageless psychopaths spreading misery wherever we might go, as though_ one _was not bad enough; surely I ought to limit that damage, since I have the option?_

Realizing that Abe was still waiting for him to actually answer his question, Henry managed to sound reasonably natural in saying “Yes, of course; I was lost in my memories for just a moment.” And as Abe nodded to himself and returned to his wine, Henry sat, looking at but not seeing the weapon that first killed him, and prepared to revisit every conclusion, every inference he had made regarding his condition in his long life, to consider just what, if any, might be the right way to proceed.


End file.
